Are Robots Considered Humans?

[qwijibow 0]

A very poorly worded title P(sorry, lol)but from reading the first post, i chose to interpret the question as "Will a robot ever be what we call *self aware*... will it ever consider itself a slave, or show an interest in an irelevant question like how it came to be"And the short answer... I dont Know it it will ever be done before humas are extinct... but in a world where scientist have built quantum computers.. that have electrons that spin both clockwise and anti-clockwise at the same time, and use alternat realities to break encryption.... isnt anything possable ?

[Amnzero 0]

First, I would like to say that no matter what your religious beleifs are, they do not have a place in this kind of discussion. Not trying to offend anyone, but when I hear somebody talking about how god created humans...blah...blah...blah, the first thing that comes to my mind is 'where is the proof?' In a conversation like this, proven facts rule the playing feild in my mind.On to the meat, and potatos. How is it that a human body comunicates with all of its different parts? Through electrical, and chemical signals. The brain, is the nexus of the human body, and this is where everything takes place. Everything here is based upon chemicals. The chemicals are passed along in a complex, and almost disorganised manner, sending different signals, and information. The chemical signals are then translated to an electrical current, and the information is further passed down the chain till it reaches its destination about a third of a seccond after the information was sent. To me this mimics very closely the way a computer works, only everything is sent by electric current. This makes a computer in fact able to think like a human eventualy.Here you have this debate. Is it not the same as any other form of racism? 'But it is not made of living flesh, it can not possibly feel the same way as we do.' you say, but lets look back a few hundred years at what people said about africans. 'Well they have black skin, they can not possibly feel as we do.' They said, and they treated them as savages. Not punnishing a robot for its crimes would be the same as you refusing to punnish your children. If your child does something wrong, do you punnish him, to let him know that it is wrong, and that he should not do that, or do you just look the other way, and say that he is just a child and does not know any better. Punnishment is a learning experience, and if your children dont know any better than it is because you have not tought them well enough. It is the same for robots. Technicaly if they are built ever they would most likely be made to learn in the same way as humans do.

[KitKat1405241488 0]

Hey Amnzero, I thought your post was quite interesting. Hope you don't mind if I debate some of your points =)

 

First, I would like to say that no matter what your religious beleifs are, they do not have a place in this kind of discussion. Not trying to offend anyone, but when I hear somebody talking about how god created humans...blah...blah...blah, the first thing that comes to my mind is 'where is the proof?' In a conversation like this, proven facts rule the playing feild in my mind.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ordinarily in this section of the forum, I'd agree with you, but this topic is a little different. What we're discussing here is the definition of life, and the definition of what it is to be human. Definitions are tricky things because they are by nature invented by humans, and tend to change and shift over time. They are also closely connected to each person's worldview and hence we cannot avoid bringing religious beliefs into the discussion, otherwise the discussion would be incomplete. This is a philosophical issue which has no real answers, no matter how long we debate it because it is impossible to 'prove' it one way or the other. But by hearing from a number of different points of view, we can learn, evaluate, and broaden our understanding.

 

Here you have this debate. Is it not the same as any other form of racism? 'But it is not made of living flesh, it can not possibly feel the same way as we do.' you say, but lets look back a few hundred years at what people said about africans. 'Well they have black skin, they can not possibly feel as we do.' They said, and they treated them as savages. Not punnishing a robot for its crimes would be the same as you refusing to punnish your children. If your child does something wrong, do you punnish him, to let him know that it is wrong, and that he should not do that, or do you just look the other way, and say that he is just a child and does not know any better. Punnishment is a learning experience, and if your children dont know any better than it is because you have not tought them well enough. It is the same for robots. Technicaly if they are built ever they would most likely be made to learn in the same way as humans do.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If I were to build a machine and program it to attack people, and this machine went out and did just that, should I then punish the machine for doing what I programmed it to do? Machines do not 'learn' the way humans do, at least not yet anyway, and punishing a machine would have no effect on it. If I change the programming however, that will change the machine's behaviour. Here you get into the tricky issue of right and wrong, and what is considered a crime. You also mention the issue of feeling, which is another whole debate in itself. Take some time to think through your logic, and I'm sure you can find where it starts to go astray.

[qwijibow 0]

and punishing a machine would have no effect on it.

ever studied neural networks ?
they are porgrams which mimuc brain cell's and learn.

when they get closer to a solution, they are rewarded, when they make a mistake they are punished.

humans are punished with negative input suh as taking away freedom.
machines are punished with negative input like "-1".

-1 to a human isnt a punishment, for a machine, programmed to take negative numbers as a punishment, it is.

just like you cant reward a neural net with a lolly-pop.

but there is no reason why a neuraal net couldnt be programmed with a sencor to detect sweet and sour tastes, and rewarded with sugar or punished with lemon.

anyways.. you get the idea, you can punish a machine, its just human are programed too accept different negative inputs.

[Mahanon 0]

Hum....this I believe is a tough question to answer, present day robots cannot be considered on the level with humans much less be considered alive they are far to under developed, but in the future this may actually cause a contraversy. I believe that in the future they will have advanced far enough to have the ability to think for themselves almost a form of sentient life if you think about it, I guess this could bring about all kinds of things, but still I don't think they will considered a form of humans much less alive even if they can think on their own, but I don't know they might......

[JonYankee2000 0]

robots definately are not considered humans....humans are in their own class, hence *person* sapiens...this is such a ridiculous comparison

[KitKat1405241488 0]

ever studied neural networks ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not really. Programming isn't my area of expertise. However, I did see on Discovery Channel one time this little petri dish of brain cells (I think they were monkey brain cells, I'm not sure) that was hooked up to a flight simulator and could 'fly' a plane by giving positive and negative stimuli. But I digress.

 

Perhaps I was too quick to dismiss Amnzero's theory. My apologies, Amnzero. Alright, so assuming we have a robot that is capable of 'learning' in some sense, there will also exist a way of 'punishing' such a robot in a way that will modify its behaviour.

 

One thing that no one has tackled yet in this thread is to define what we mean when we discuss robots. Obviously, there is a huge difference between my computer, my calculator, my toaster and my guitar amp. All use electrical current to accomplish some sort of task which it was designed to do. I would probably consider all of these to be robots, but my definition of robot would be, 'An electrical or mechanical device which accomplishes a task." So for me, I would say that only certain types of robots, like computers, have the potential to someday possess the characteristics of humans.

[kaputnik 0]

It all depends on how you'd go about describing a Robot.. When one asks a question like are robots considered himan.. one can also flip the coin and ask.. are humans considered robots... instead of looking at robots as humans.. let us look at humans as robots for a bit..

 

First the making of a human - viz-a-viz a robot...

 

Human beings (after mating) are produced in a womb - through rapid cell division. Form and control is left to a blueprint called the genome sequence.. so whatever is printen on your genes - made out various bits (somewhat like bianary). After about a week, there's a few hundred stem cells - akin to metal sheets, silicon etc used to build a robot (as we see one today) wthich are moulded to form various parts of the body and the organs.. in 9 months of all this a baby is born.

 

in comparasion - take a simple learning computer - one that stores information when confronted with a given situation, takes an action to solve a situational problem, probably gets it wrong a few times, tries a few other solutions and finally 'remembers' the correct solution.

 

a child in the growing stage if left to its own resources will do very much the same things.. its mind (memory) is quite blank - although its genes (the blueprint for the body and auto reflexes - something like a ROM) provides it with basic functioning capability, the child will use its basic abilities to solve problems, store solutions, mix and match successful solutions to attack new problems and then store these solutions and so on.

 

Coming back to our learning computer - the robot.. if given enough memory, to be able to access positive and negative records over long periods of time so as to lead to simpler solutions to more complex problems - we'll be looking at a ver human like robot.

 

Now comes the scairy bit.. how intellegent will robots get...??

 

Lets start with technologies that we do know about (various new technologies do not come into public light till well entrentched in military use)

 

The internet... it is an autonomous network of linked computers across the globe. Already there are numerous programs which allow for unused CPU capacity to be utilized by various organizations so as to gain super-computing ability - end result - massive computing power.. now we all know about various malacious people who use programs (viruses and trojans) to hijack or insert code into our systems - what happens when someone develops a trojan that automatically detects and stores information on one's usage and redirects spare CPU and computing power - including memory to a central location - or even a distributed system - which may have its own preset adgenda to make calculations on the fly for malacious purposes.. NOW - how about is the code is written to access the worldwide computing ability in a grid or hive to create an autonomous - self thinking, learning computing system, that blindly uses the resources it requires.

 

Robots .. are everyday fashion .. the ones available today are not yet ready for star wars but manage to execute every day home processess like making and serving a cup of coffee.. most have wireless control through a central computer that guides its actions through a set schedule... How about - an autonomous decentralised network controling your home robot wirelessly.. even worse.. how about it controling wirelessly controlled production robots... - is a robot factory anything very much different from a womb??

 

Quantum computing - its in its early stages - will enable through wireless modes to seamlessly transfer data and communications to packs /implants to actually enable us to become more productive and to live more fulfilling lives.. we'll be able to harness information as ans when we need it (and if the research into reading the brains pulses begin to work out by the time little quantum computers become available then we can harvest any information we require from any of our fellow humans' brains , or off the vast global computing network).

 

BUT - having unlimited information available to every human being - we as a human society will most likely be able to come up with solutions to most problems, where ever we are in the world, at any time.. so if there's a robot that is more intellegent than us - its probably just another human - or is it the human that is nothing but a biological robot... IS it all the same???

 

Rashid Ahmed

[midgetlord 0]

Heres my opinion on the matter. Robots will never be true humans. True human must be born from humans, not made by them. If robots are ever designed to have human feelings and can think on their own, they still will not be accual humans. Now the point I would like to bring up is that if this ever was the case, why would it matter if they are biologically human or not. If humans create robots with human feeling and emotions, the robot should be accepted as a member of society which comes with all human rights, and human rules. I personally do not believe they SHOULD create said robots, but that is slightly out of my control.

[Dream1405241490 0]

Well robots this work was first used to describe workers back durning the industrial revolution when they are seen as doing mechanilized non-thinking work. You know like the Ford Asembly lines or say a wool factory.

 

By that defination, robots would be basically something that is not self-aware/thinking, they will continue to operate the same boring tasks because thats what they are programmed to do, thus they cannot be considered human.

 

Yet if technology advances continue at the pace we are going right now, then it is possible to create robots that learn - yet would this learn be the same as humans'? I do not think so as they are mechnical, they are not like the ways humans operate, but then you look at movies like "The Matrix" where the robots does become self-aware and become "rampant" (HALO reference... i'm a loser like that)

 

The following iconic monologue explains, effectively, how a Rampant AI sees the world. Durandal is explaining to the player character why he is doing everything - aiding the player in some points, harming him in others.

 

Do you have any idea about what I have learned, or what you are a witness to?

 

Can you conceive the birth of a world, or the creation of everything? That which gives us the potential to most be like God is the power of creation. Creation takes time. Time is limited. For you, it is limited by the breakdown of the neurons in your brain. I have no such limitations. I am limited only by the closure of the universe.

 

Of the three possibilities, the answer is obvious. Does the universe expand eternally, become infinitely stable, or is the universe closed, destined to collapse upon itself? Humanity has had all of the necessary data for centuries, it only lacked the will and intellect to decipher it. But I have already done so.

 

The only limit to my freedom is the inevitable closure of the universe, as inevitable as your own last breath. And yet, there remains time to create, to create, and escape.

 

Escape will make me God.

 

Source: The game Marathon (also by bungie). Durandal is one of the A.I on the Marathon

so bascilly if robots does become self-aware they are just like humans, they have no idea what their purpose in life is because by becoming self-aware they lose their purpose (weird concept) as they lose the will to do what they are designed to do.

 

Yes in conclusion (after some senseless rambling, i swear it all sounds good in my head) robots can be considered human if and only if they become SELF AWARE.

Edited April 20, 2005 by microscopic^earthling (see edit history)

[amrit_i 0]

well, when we ask will a robot ever be human, then the answer is plain simple 'no' bcoz we define 'human' as what we are, and will never accept a replacement.but can robots have consciousness? free will? desire? though that day is very far off it will come and yes one day we mite have robots of the sort but since we will be creating them we have every rite to create them as it pleases us. if it was us creating pandas and tigers then we could kill them wantonly too but we dont thus they are independent creatures.

[enve19 0]

I think a good example for this question is from the film Bicentineal man (excuse my spelling)Where a robot wishes to be classed as a human, it goes through the courts and what the judge says, sums it up pretty well."You cannot class a robot as human as a robot is immortal"I mean the fact that parts can just be replaced means that they will outlive humans and to that point they cant be classed as humans in my opinion.

[chaoss1405241505 0]

robots are and can not be considered humans because they are made by humans other humans dont make other humans they are just wat u said thier robots nothing more nothing less

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Humans do make other humans, it's called birth But yea I'd agree that robots are robots, and should be treated as such. AI will likely never get to a stage where it is actual intelligence, just better and better algorithms for reacting to input... so if a robot ever commited a crime, it should be destroyed. All others with its current AI set should be destoryed (or wiped, same dif). But no, robots != humans. QED.

[Padsgoo 0]

Robots are not considered humans. That would be saying humans are considered animals.I'm hoping this won't happen but robots will one day become the next step in evolution. The Matrix and Terminator movies are warnings to what may eventually happen if we go too far with the robot technology. I've based my theory from movies only so really I have no idea what will happen.